The Pursuit of Excellence: Week 1.2

Kallie Boxell's 8th grade science
students are engaged with a relevant
bell ringer activity.

Growing Excellence (+10 for ALL)
The first week was excellent, and I hope that every kid you met was exposed to high expectations for excellence in every class. Consistency is the key to help every kid get their +10, and every teacher and administrator owns a part of consistency. This week, I am sharing links that I found on bell ringers and exit tickets. I hope you find them valuable as you plan for weeks 2 and 3.

7 Bell Ringers for MS and HS English
Math Bell Ringer - Financial Literacy Quiz
Elementary STEM Activity
10 Exit Slip Prompts that will work in ANY Class
See Twitter link below

Another tutor group/starter activity - How many words can you make out of the word 'education'? Pupils of all ages and abilities enjoy this
— Annabel Daniels (@Teacher20154) August 23, 2015

College AND Career

College and career should be in the forefront of every student's mind because they all need a career that will make them stable in life. To get that stable career, they will need some form of college or vocational education beyond high school. Your class is the training ground for College and Career. Please make sure that you connect your content to how it will help them in the future.

Check out Kim Permenter's class Twitter account. She will be using Twitter to show her followers and the TISD community what they are doing to promote college and career for every child. If you would like help starting a class Twitter account, let me know. It's very easy.

Students create their vehicle to cruise in to college and career! @JohnWink90 #TMSCandC #Excellence4ALL #TMS pic.twitter.com/vhVXe8lWzK
— TMSCandC (@TMSCandC) August 24, 2015

Google Me This

IU Templates

I have looked at a lot of plans this week and you are doing a great job planning for your instruction. As you plan for week 2 and beyond, remember that coaches, principals, and administrators will begin leaving comments based on what they review in your IU or based on what they see when they walk through your classroom.

Comments are feedback, and they will focus on the attributes of your work. We are all growing, so it is important to know that your feedback could encompass a combination of the following things:

Positive comments on what is working in your classroom
Observations of students connected or not connected to your instruction.
Observations of what you are doing in the classroom and how it is enhancing student engagement.
Feedback on the rigor of your lesson being aligned to the rigor of the standard.
Suggestions to enhance the great things in place.
Questions to help the observer learn more about your instruction.

Feedback should help you know what is working well and what you can do to strengthen engagement or rigor. The great part about feedback is that you can and should respond to the comments. What we see is based on our perception, so if you have questions or comments, you should feel comfortable REPLYing to the comment. If you have read the comment and don't need to reply, mark the comment RESOLVED so that all parties know the comment has been read.

Google Classroom

I know I have shared this before, but you may have not seen it. If you are using Google Classroom to manage your students' learning, this video will show you quickly how it works.

This article shows new features that are out and new features that are coming soon, like embedding Google Forms into Classroom for quizzes (exit ticket!!!).